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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will no longer track the cost of climate change-fueled weather disasters, including floods, heat waves, wildfires and more. It is the latest example of changes to the agency and the Trump administration limiting federal government resources on climate change.

NOAA falls under the U.S. Department of Commerce and is tasked with daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring. It is also parent to the National Weather Service.

The agency said its National Centers for Environmental Information would no longer update its Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database beyond 2024, and that its information — going as far back as 1980 — would be archived.

A group of investors sued UnitedHealthcare Group on Wednesday, accusing the company of misleading them after the killing of its CEO, Brian Thompson.

The class action lawsuit — filed in the Southern District of New York — accuses the health insurance company of not initially adjusting their 2025 net earning outlook to factor in how Thompson’s killing would affect their operations.

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The group, which is seeking unspecified damages, argued that the public backlash prevented the company from pursuing “the aggressive, anti-consumer tactics that it would need to achieve” its earnings goals.

Robert Prevost has become the first clergyman from the United States to lead the Roman Catholic church, ending the Vatican’s longstanding opposition to the idea of a US pontiff.

The 69-year-old from Chicago has taken the papal name Pope Leo XIV, a senior cardinal announced from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday evening.

The announcement, which followed white smoke billowing from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel, prompted raucous celebration and delight among the 50,000 pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square.

United States has pushed some nations facing tariffs imposed by Donald Trump to approve Elon Musk's Starlink, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing State Department cables.

The cables show how U.S. embassies and the department pushed countries to clear hurdles for satellite companies, often mentioning Starlink by name, the Post reported.

The documents do not show that the Trump administration has demanded favors for Starlink in exchange for lower tariffs, the newspaper reported. But they indicate that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has instructed officials to push for regulatory approvals for Musk's satellite firm, it reported.

Ten days after an equipment malfunction left about a dozen planes flying blind for 90 seconds in the crowded skies over New Jersey, worried pilots and air traffic controllers are imploring the Federal Aviation Administration to fix the system's aging infrastructure.

The "shell-shocked" controllers who guide planes in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport work in constant fear of radar systems' going down or losing radio contact with pilots as they're approaching one of the busiest airports in the country, a recently retired controller told NBC News.

Both of those failures happened at once on April 28.

Study finds human-caused climate change made four-day rainfall across central Mississippi valley 40% more likely

The four-day historic storm that caused death and destruction across the central Mississippi valley in early April was made significantly more likely and more severe by burning fossil fuels, rapid analysis by a coalition of leading climate scientists has found.

Record quantities of rain were dumped across eight southern and midwestern states between 3 and 6 April, causing widespread catastrophic flooding that killed at least 15 people, inundated crops, wrecked homes, swept away vehicles and caused power outages for hundreds of thousands of households.

The floods were caused by rainfall made about 9% more intense and 40% more likely by human-caused climate change, the World Weather Attribution (WWA) study found. Uncertainty in models means the role of the climate crisis was probably even higher.

A combination shot would make it easier for people to get vaccinated against Covid and the flu at the same time.

Moderna’s combined Covid and flu shot outperformed the existing standalone vaccines for both viruses, according to the results of a phase 3 clinical trial published Wednesday in theJournal of the American Medical Association. 

The vaccine uses the same messenger RNA technology as Moderna’s approved Covid vaccine.(There are no approved mRNA-based flu shots.)

The trial, funded by Moderna, included more than 8,000 adults ages 50 and older who were enrolled in October and November 2023. For people ages 50 to 64, the new vaccine was compared to Moderna’s Covid vaccine and the flu shot Fluarix. For people 65 and older, it was compared to the Covid vaccine and a different flu shot, called Fluzone, which is a stronger dose typically given to older adults. The trial participants either got the existing shots, or the new combination vaccine plus a placebo shot. (This way, both groups got two injections.)

Four members said they were informed of the termination Friday, but it had already taken effect in late March, according to a CDC letter.

The Trump administration has terminated a federal advisory committee that issued guidance about preventing the spread of infections in health care facilities.

The Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) crafted national standards for hand-washing, mask-wearing and isolating sick patients that most U.S. hospitals follow.

Four committee members said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention delivered the news about HICPAC’s termination to members Friday.

Attack damaged €1.5bn containment structure over nuclear reactor with repair costs likely to be borne by western governments

A Russian Shahed drone costing up to £75,000 is estimated to have inflicted tens of millions worth of damage to the site of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, according to initial assessments and engineering experts.

The cost of a full fix is likely to be borne by western governments including the UK, because initial estimates are that a complete repair will cost more than the €25m available in a special international contingency fund.

The strike in mid February did not cause an immediate radiological risk, but it significantly damaged the €1.5bn containment structure built in 2017 to encase the destroyed reactor and is likely to take months if not years to completely repair.

Paper in Nature Climate Change journal reveals major role wealthy emitters play in driving climate extremes

The world’s wealthiest 10% are responsible for two-thirds of global heating since 1990, driving droughts and heatwaves in the poorest parts of the world, according to a study.

While researchers have previously shown that higher income groups emit disproportionately large amounts of greenhouse gases, the latest survey is the first to try to pin down how that inequality translates into responsibility for climate breakdown. It offers a powerful argument for climate finance and wealth taxes by attempting to give an evidential basis for how many people in the developed world – including more than 50% of full-time employees in the UK – bear a heightened responsibility for the climate disasters affecting people who can least afford it.

“Our study shows that extreme climate impacts are not just the result of abstract global emissions; instead we can directly link them to our lifestyle and investment choices, which in turn are linked to wealth,” said Sarah Schöngart, a climate modelling analyst and the study’s lead author.

SpaceX and Starlink owner may benefit from Trump cuts to projects that could have led to regulations and costs

The Trump administration is poised to kill federal research into pollution from satellites and rockets, including some caused by Elon Musk’s space companies, raising new conflict-of-interest questions about the billionaire SpaceX and Starlink owner.

The pollution appears to be accumulating in the stratosphere at alarming levels. Some fear it could destroy the ozone layer, potentially expose some people to higher levels of ultraviolet radiation or help further destabilize the earth’s climate during the climate crisis.

The two research projects would have had the potential to eventually lead to new regulations, costs or logistical challenges for Musk’s companies and the commercial space industry, experts say.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency last week classified the largest opposition party, the AfD, as "confirmed right-wing extremist." This has intensified debates over whether or not to ban the party.

On Friday, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) was classified as "confirmed right-wing extremist" by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).

Now, there has been a first fallout: two AfD politicians and parliamentarians are not allowed to accompany Hesse's Minister for European affairs, Manfred Pentz, on a trip to Serbia and Croatia. Pentz explained that he could not expect international partners "to sit down at the same table with representatives of a party that has been confirmed as right-wing extremist."

Further measures also threaten the radical right-wing party: several federal states want to examine whether being a civil servant, including judges, police officers, teachers, or soldiers, is still compatible with being a member of the AfD.